How Has Piracy Developed?

Piracy has always been a constant threat throughout maritime history, the face of piracy has also been constantly changing. Over time, pirates have been motivated usually by religion, politics, power, and greed. The modern pirates while smaller can also be considered more dangerous due to the modern weaponry. Modern pirates often own and use firearms such as automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Which is a huge step up from cannons and swords. However, due to international laws, ships cannot carry weapons on board so they cannot defend themselves against pirates and their huge deadly attacks.

Today, however, pirates can be put in 3 groups which are the mafia, kidnappers, and thieves. The mafia pirates in Asia and West Africa hijack oil tankers, then gets the oil to sell them on the black market, and then release ship and crew unharmed. The Somalian kidnappers violently take crews and ships hostage, then demand ransoms for their release. The thieves groups throughout the world quickly board vessels, mug the crew, and collect whatever valuables they can before making quick getaways. The modern pirates really only do these things, which is quite a bit different compared to the Golden Age of Pirates. First off to state a similarity was they also attacked ships that were transporting goods. However that's about the only similarity, what they also did was attack other pirate ships. As well as that they also traveled to foreign lands, found a coastal town, then when they did, they completely raided, took control of and destroyed.